Asianet Mood of Nation: 79% Indians prefer NDA govt; PM Modi most popular leader

New Delhi: An overwhelming 51.1 percent of the respondents believe that the Narendra Modi government’s decision to notify the Citizenship Amendment Act rules will positively impact the BJP’s election prospects. While 26.85 percent of those who took the digital survey believed that the decision on CAA would negatively impact the BJP in the Lok Sabha election, 22.03 percent felt there would be no impact on the party’s performance in the hustings. Curiously, 48.4 percent of the respondents from Tamil Nadu believed that the decision to notify CAA rules would have no impact on the BJP’s election fortunes.

When asked to rate the biggest achievement of the Narendra Modi government, 38.11 percent lauded the infrastructure development work undertaken by the dispensation. Another 26.41 percent voted for the government’s Digital India initiative while 11.46 percent picked the Modi government’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) push.

A further deep dive revealed that the Hindi heartland (30.04 percent) cited the fulfillment of the Ram Mandir promise as the Modi government’s biggest achievement. Interestingly, a similar view emerged from among the Telugu-speaking audience which too echoed the Hindi heartland (30.83 percent votes). At the same time, they also gave a resounding thumbs up for the Digital India initiative.

Staying on the Ram Mandir, the Mood of the Nation survey revealed that 57.16 percent of the respondents across the country stated that Ram Mandir would be a factor in the forthcoming Lok Sabha Elections while 31.16 percent of them felt otherwise.

Narendra Modi (51.06 percent) was voted as the top choice for the Prime Minister’s post followed by Rahul Gandhi (46.45 percent). Rahul’s enhanced numbers came from just one state — Kerala (50.59 percent). Remove that, and one sees Narendra Modi truly emerging as the national leader with over 80 percent. In the rest of the southern states, and across the nation, Modi is the top choice for the Prime Minister’s post.

When asked in more specific terms about who they thought was better suited to govern India for the next five years, the mandate was pretty one-sided with 78.6 percent opting for an NDA government while 21.4 percent rooted for the INDI alliance.

A very important dataset that emerged from the Mood of the Nation survey is that voters have shed the decades-old practice of falling for freebies and populist promises when it comes to deciding what matters the most to them. An overwhelming 80.5 percent of the respondents stated that development — not caste dynamics, candidate profile, or freebies — will be the factor that determines their vote. This reflects the coming of age of the electorate, and, in many ways, offers the Opposition an opportunity to rethink their election strategy.

Talking of the Opposition, the Asianet News Network survey highlights how 60.33 percent of respondents — even those in states not governed by the BJP — believe that the INDI alliance will not be able to overpower the Modi wave in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Only 32.28 percent of the respondents believed that the INDI alliance would be able to tame the Modi wave.

Digging into the aspect even more closely, the dataset reveals that 48.24 percent of those who took part in the survey believed that the Opposition’s biggest failure was three-pronged — lack of vision, lack of leadership, and having too many leaders with Prime Ministerial ambitions.

More worrying prospects lie ahead for the Congress, which has, in recent weeks, seen a spate of resignations. The Mood of the Nation survey reveals that 54.76 percent of the respondents believe that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra will not improve the party’s prospects in the forthcoming Lok Sabha Election 2024. Just 38.12 percent of the respondents believed that the Congress tally could improve due to Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra.

Another 56.39 percent gave a thumbs up to the Modi government’s handling of the foreign policy. Another 65.08 percent endorsed the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the border issue with China while 21.82 percent were unsatisfied with how the government handled Beijing. Besides, 79.27 percent of respondents believed that the country’s standing in the global order improved under PM Modi.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)